Chapter 62: Deja vu

Dear Everyone,

This week has been pretty great! The weather was gorgeous up until about last Friday... and then it got super cold again. It was like a little teaser for what summer will probably be like. But we saw a way awesome double rainbow yesterday, so even when it's raining there's still beautiful things to be seen. :)

Some of the beautiful scenery of England in the spring!

A really cool rainbow (hopefully it's visible) 

We had one really cool miracle this week! Well, more than one, but one that was especially noteworthy! Last Monday while street contacting, I said hi to this Asian guy and he looked around all confused. When he saw me, he was like, "Oh, hi!" like he knew me. So we stopped and talked to him and it turns out that Sister Chee and I had contacted him a while ago on the street and just given him a mormon.org card. I didn't really remember him, which I felt slightly bad about since he remembered me, but it was okay. As we were saying good bye, we invited him to an activity that night. He said he'd maybe go, and then said, "I still have your card! I didn't lose it!" And he proved it later by texting us haha. So that was way cool. He ended up going to the activity that night, meeting with us on Wednesday, and then going to a baptism on Friday and having a lesson with us afterward!! So that was way awesome. Even when there were very few students on the street, Heavenly Father still put a prepared person in our path!!

As for Li and Jone, they're doing quite well. Li is supposed to be having a baptismal interview this week, so please pray for him that everything will go well and he will be able to make his date! Jone is working towards a later date, but has been making changes in his life in order to obey the commandments. He also reads the Book of Mormon every day, which is quite impressive.

As for me, I'm still happy here in wonderful (occasionally sunny) Northern England. I love being a missionary! It's the best decision I've ever made! Thank you for all your prayers and support. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love you!

Love,

Sister Larson

Chapter 61: Meagan Forgets How Long She Has Been Writing

Note:  the actual title of this week's email was "Week .... I don't remember, sorry"

Hi everyone! 

I feel like I'm a bit off on my weeks now because I didn't e-mail last week. Sorry about that, we were travelling all day last week and I had a very short amount of e-mail time, so I just sent it to my family members. But we got to see a castle, so WOOT.

Well, this week has been pretty awesome. First off, transfer calls were last night. I found out that I'm staying in Newcastle with Sister Xie, yay!! And Sister Salcedo is moving, sad, but Sister Chee is still staying and she's training!!!! I'm going to be a grandma, haha! I'm actually way excited. This transfer is going to rock.

The ruins part of the castle. this was where the kitchens
and guest rooms were. in like the seventeenth century.
fact: the guy who owned this castle was a major playboy, but he also became the first duke of newcastle after the english
civil war in the late 1600s. cool, huh?

And in other news, we've had a great week with Li and Jone. They were our only investigators in town this week, but they're doing great! Li even came finding with us on Saturday... it was for like 3 hours but he stuck with it! Bless him he was a bit tired after that, but then we went to Conference. Can I just say, it was amazing! Probably the best conference so far of my life. I loved all the talks, they answered a lot of questions I've had lately. And I loved the emphasis on the family. Being away from my family, it's been a lot easier to figure out how much they mean to me. I miss them tons. But I'm so grateful that families are forever! I know it's true and I want others to be with their families forever, too. That's why I came here. :)

Easter was beautiful, the most amazing weather we've had since like last summer. It was gorgeous and sunny and warm. So it was a wonderful Easter Sunday, perfect circumstances to remember what our Saviour did for us. In the video Because He Lives, (go watch it if you haven't yet here:http://www.mormon.org/easter) my favourite part is where it says that Christ is here, with us, all the time. It's true! Because He lives, He truly is with us whenever we need Him. I've discovered that to be true on many occasions, and I challenge all of you to get to know Him a bit better. He truly loves all of us.

Well I hope you all had a great Easter/Conference weekend! Enjoy the sunshine, smile and be happy!! Love you all.

Love, 

Sister Larson

me and my comp by the front wall

the view from the castle. it's set on a hill so you can see for miles and miles. 

this tree reminds me of the white tree of gondor.
you know, if it was white. but i still thought it was cool.

Castle from last pday!

this room was called the senses room. it was a dining room
and had paintings on teh wall representing the five senses.
it was gorgeous, all black and gold.

this was the star room, so named for the ceiling, but it was way cool.
it had tapestries depicting the life of abraham and pictures of lots of saints on the walls.

this is a cool ceiling painting of Christ's second coming. with baby angel things. yeah, cool.

he top little thingy i don't remember what you call that, dome thing, whatever. it was pretty. :)

the best district ever!

Chapter 60: Late, short, and sweet

Note:  Meagan only sent one letter to family members, due to circumstances explained in her message.  With Meagan's permission I am posting parts of the message that are of interest to everyone.

Hi everyone! It's Meagan! 

Sorry you're all getting the same e-mail, I don't have much time. We ended up driving all the way down to Doncaster today for a doctor's appointment for ****** and now we're in Leeds and I only have a short time to e-mail. But I'll tell you a bit about the week! Oh, and today we went to a CASTLE! It is called Bosover Castle, or something like that, near Chesterfield. You can look it up. It's way cool and I'll have pictures next week. Again, sorry this week's e-mail is lame.  I'm still totes jelly you guys went to Disneyland, but it sounded really fun! And i loved the pictures. Man that sun looks nice right now. It's raining like crazy out here. As for actual missionary stuffs this week... it was slower than the week before but not too bad. We had a really good lesson with Li last week and it was awesome. He said he really felt something different and is progressing so well! We also met with Jone yesterday and he is doing so well too. He read so much in the Book of Mormon since the first time we met him. So that was really good. Other than that, it was a week where my patience was tried here and there but I have really tried to be good with that! So yeah. And I won't have time to send out a mass e-mail, so if you want to post this on the blog you can or you can just tell everyone to wait for a really cool e-mail next week, haha! 

Well I hope you are having a great day, again, sorry this is lame but it's better than nothing, right? haha. I love you all so much, have a fantastic week!

Love, Meagan

Chapter 59: Miracles Come After the Trial of our Faith

Dear everyone,

Yes, after our pretty lame week last week, we finally had some things happen this week. So it was an awesome week. We had a few miracles! Which I will now tell you about.

Miracle #1: Jone. 

We met Jone on the street last Sunday street contacting and set up an appointment with him for the following Thursday. So we meet with him and have an awesome lesson 1 and we schedule him for baptism! And he's talking with us afterward and is all "You know, I have some questions that might not be answered. But I'm really scared of death. Like, is that normal? What do you guys believe about that?" And we were like. "Oh boy, do we ever have an answer to that! To be continued, mate, next time we meet we will tell you." And he agreed to read the Book of Mormon. SOLID.

I looked out the window and what did I see? Popcorn popping on our neighbor's tree!

Miracle #2: Li.

You might remember Li from a while ago. We had a lesson, we ate hot pot together, he went to China, we never saw him again, met him on the street randomly. Well we had a great lesson with him, found out he read a large part of 1 Nephi while he was gone (man, so good) and scheduled him for baptism as well!!! WOOT. 

Yummy Chinese food from a feast we had a few days ago

Miracle #3: Zoe.

We found Zoe street contacting. She is really talkative and so we talked to her for like half an hour when we first met her. Well we saw her twice this week: the first time we tried to teach, but she just wanted to chat. The second time, we actually taught and it was stellar. She's like "I love reading Bible stories. Does this Book of Mormon have any stories in it?" Uh, yes, yes it does. BOOM. 

The lovely English sky at sunset yesterday. :)

Miracle #4: Hot pot.

This wasn't actually a miracle... we just ate hot pot on Saturday with Crystal, Doris, Fang Fang, and Am. ... But it was delicious. 

Anyway, this week was great and really taught me a lesson about being patient in my afflictions, and then the Lord will give me success. It's true. So if you're at the end of your rope, tie a knot and hold on! Things WILL get better, it's doctrine. :) I love you all and hope you have a fantastic week! Happy Spring!

Love,

Sister Larson

This is my zone. We're pretty good looking. :)

 

My companion likes to colour in the pictures
 she gets from the Liahona (in the children's section).
She says, "I'm such a good artist!"

Chapter 58: "Endure to the End" Days

Hi everyone!

Well this week had its ups and its downs, as do most weeks. But I definitely learned a lot, as you always tend to do on missions. This week we had a great lesson with Mandy - oh man, she's just so cute. And I love her because she's got things figured out. She was talking with me before the lesson officially started and she was like, "You know, my life has just been so much better since I got baptised! Is that normal?" And I said yes. And she continued: "I'm just happier and things are going well with my family and their business is going well and my school work is all going well." And so I told her that Heavenly Father was blessing her for being faithful and obedient and reminded her to keep being obedient so she can continue to enjoy these blessings. And she said, "Oh, of course I will do that!" Love her.

Then this week we also found Li, one of our investigators from a while back! He had gone to China and we had lost contact so it was sad because it was so golden. But we saw him on the street this week! And he agreed to meet with us! Yay! So that was awesome since the rest of our week was less than stellar.

As for the subject of this letter, there were definitely a few days this week that really tried my patience. In one of those days, I honestly stood still for like two minutes straight just thinking, "Am I going to cry, or should I just laugh about this?" You know those days, where it seems like you're trying so hard to be good and then something goes wrong, so you try to be positive, and then another thing goes wrong, and then you get a bit annoyed, and then another thing goes wrong, and then you just want to punch a wall. I had a few of those days this week. I call them "endure to the end" days. Because sometimes, not everything goes the way I want. Sometimes life is hard. But that's just part of being alive and being a human. It's part of our mortal experience. And so we just have to endure to the end and pray for help and then go to work. So I learned that lesson this week, and I'm grateful that I did.

Well I hope you all learned something this week and had a good week! Remember to do something nice for someone else! You never know, they might be having one of those "endure to the end" days and you just might help them get through it. :) Love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson

A waiting for the bus selfie.

More delicious food (that i made this time).

I still love dolphins.

Here's that one Darth Vader guy playing the piano
 I talked about a few weeks ago. He's real. I promise.

Chapter 57: A Good Week to Eat Good Food

Hiya everyone!

So this week was the first full week with my new companion, Sister Xie. I discovered that she has this great talent of cooking really amazing, beautiful food. So we have eaten very well this week. I haven't eaten this well since I lived at home basically, so this week has definitely been a good one. :)

Just some of the amazing food I've had this week!!

We also had something totally wonderful happen on Sunday! It was our Stake Conference in Sunderland and it was really great. The best part happened after the conference though. 4 of our Chinese boys received the Melchizedek Priesthood and were ordained Elders. It was so amazing. I feel like I've seen these boys like grow up in the gospel, since I got here when they were all recently baptised. It's the coolest thing to be involved with someone who is progressing in the gospel and continuing to make and keep sacred covenants. I just love it!

A really not so attractive picture of me and my companion
coming back from stake conference. We were at the front
of the metro so we were feeling pretty fly. Haha.

This week we also went on exchange with Sister Holland and her companion, Sister Schmidt! It was short but good and we had an awesome finding blitz in the city trying to talk to as many Chinese people as we could! We met one really solid potential who is Christian and whose family is also Christian, which is quite uncommon. But hopefully we will see him this next week and start the work of building up our area again!

As I've been on my mission, I've seen how missionary work is not only finding people to teach about the gospel. It's also about strengthening each other as members and working with people who have lost sight of the gospel path they once walked on. At our Stake Conference, a lot of the talks were about the Europe Area Plan for this year, which emphasises spiritual and temporal self-reliance. As we work together, we can help to bolster our individual spirituality and strengthen our testimonies. 

Some of the gorgeous flowers starting to poke out after a long winter!!

It's been a good but tiring week, as usual! I hope you all are doing well and having fun! The flowers are finally starting to bloom here and the weather is slightly warmer! Yay for spring! Have a good week, love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson

A picture of our shadows

Chapter 56: Slow but steady and still in Newcastle

Hi everyone,

So this week seemed to be a bit slow in our area. Probably because it felt like the week didn't even start until Thursday. On Wednesday I went to Leeds to go get my new companion. It was fun going to transfer meeting and seeing all the new missionaries, as well as the ones going home. Plus, driving through the English countryside gives plenty of gorgeous views! So that night Sister Xie came to Newcastle! She's pretty great and we've had lots of fun together so far. She really likes to talk and her Chinese isn't bad... Hahaha it's pretty good having a native speaker for a companion again. 

My new companion, Sister Xie (pronounced shee-eh), striking a model pose. 

Let's see, this week we did quite a bit of finding and taught a few lessons. I think the highlight for me was when we taught Mandy. She is doing so well! We were reviewing some of the lessons with her and she knew all the answers. She is just too cute. I also had one of those really awesome moments on my mission. She gave me and Sister Chee little paper cut bookmarks from China as a thank-you gift for teaching her about the gospel and introducing her to this religion. It just melted my heart. Sometimes it's hard when you have to go out street contacting in the rain and no one wants to talk to you or you go knocking from door to door and no one bothers to answer or hear what you have to say. It's hard to stay motivated. But when I saw Mandy and Crystal at church on Sunday, when I teach our investigators or recent converts and they say, "I really liked this scripture that I read the other day...", I feel like what I'm doing is actually worth something. I'm not here to get paid. I'm not here to go on an adventure. I'm here because what I have is worth more than money or experiences or anything in the world really. This gospel is what I love the most, and so I'm here to share it with people. And when people accept it and they start to love it too... There's no way to describe the kind of joy you get when that happens.

Our really yummy Sunday dinner we had yesterday.
Dinner always tastes better on Fast Sunday. :)

So that was mostly our week. Sorry it's a bit of a shorter letter, but I'm sure there will be more miracle stories to tell next week! I hope you all are doing well wherever you are in the world and that you remember to SMILE and have fun!!! Love you all!

Love,

Sister Larson

Sister Chee hid in the pantry.  I don't really remember why at the moment.
But it was funny.